The Tech Jobs Bust Is Real – The Economist Says Don’t Blame AI Yet — But the Evidence Is Starting to Point That Way

The first thing you notice when you stroll through downtown San Francisco on a weekday afternoon is the quiet. There are shorter lunch lines outside the Market Street salad shops. There are still some shuttle buses with tinted windows, but they are fewer in number. Recently, a friend was informed by a barista at a café close to Salesforce Tower that her regulars had become fewer in number, and those who remained received smaller tips. little things. However, little things add up.

The recent article from The Economist that has been making the rounds on LinkedIn and Hacker News contends that while the tech job bust is real, AI is most likely not the cause—at least not yet. It is a thoughtful, persuasive argument. And it might be correct. However, as you read it, you get the impression that the magazine is attempting to stop a tide that has already begun to move.

The figures are not nuanced. In contrast to the trend line economists drew prior to late 2022, more than half a million tech jobs are currently regarded as “missing.” The percentage of American jobs in the tech sector has decreased from 2.5 to 2.3%. Oracle is making thousands of cuts. Block is laying off almost half of its employees. Amazon and Meta are constantly looking for new departments to cut. Despite what the share prices indicate, none of this appears to be a sector experiencing a generational boom.

Timing is the Economist’s primary defense. It notes that in late 2022, ChatGPT was a toy. The early models were limited to impressing dinner party guests and were unable to write production code or truly replace a backend engineer. That’s reasonable. It is argued that cheap-money hangovers, overhiring during the pandemic, and an industry that had just gotten ahead of itself were more responsible for the slowdown in tech hiring through 2023 and 2024.

However, the article reluctantly acknowledges that Claude Code, which was released in February 2025, is the first tool that makes “engineer replacement” sound less like science fiction. The shift is evident to anyone who has witnessed a senior developer give a feature to an agent and leave for the afternoon. It remains to be seen if employment statistics reflect this change. There is a lag in the data. It lags all the time.

The degree to which the trend is consistent across nations is also intriguing. Seven economies with very different labor laws and macroeconomic conditions—America, Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Japan, and Norway—all exhibit the same flattening curve in tech employment after late 2022. It is possible for coincidence to occur. On that scale, coincidence begins to resemble denial.

The mood is more difficult to ignore. Three years ago, high earners would have laughed off job-loss anxiety, but today they report the highest levels of concern ever. Thirtysomething engineers, comfortably in the middle of their careers, are discreetly updating their resumes. The inbox is more full than it has been in ten years, according to recruiters. People on the internet frequently refer to it as the “vibe shift,” which is difficult to measure but simple to sense.

Perhaps this is merely a postponed correction and The Economist is correct. Perhaps everyone who wants a single villain finds the AI explanation to be too tidy, too cinematic, or too convenient. Alternatively, it’s possible that we’re just viewing the first part of something bigger and won’t identify it. Sitting here in 2026, it’s difficult to determine which. However, hiring data over the next several quarters will likely reveal more than any opinion piece.